Anomalous
by TheHiddenMemory
Summary: It's exactly what Finch expects and precisely what he knows he's hired, so perhaps this is why it is what he does not expect that most disarranges. Early Season 1.


They hadn't expected it.

But finding the door ajar and seeing Reese immediately sweep into the room ahead of him with his weapon drawn may well have been deterrent enough, had it not already been too late.

Finch has already seen.

The scene is gory.

Finch imagines it's burned behind his retinas so that even if he can tear his eyes away he will see it just the same.

Perhaps it should matter that its victim is not a victim at all but a perpetrator of treachery and misdeed, a drug trafficker of rising prominence, yet the man's body lies across the living room rug of the condo and he is made of flesh and blood and bone and bleeds just the same and somehow it doesn't.

There's blood and death and carnage, bits and pieces of origin Finch does not bear to imagine, a pungence not of rotting flesh but of life stolen, of a soul leaving its body, and amongst this gruesome taste of mankind most monstrous his employee moves with unimaginable familiarity and inconceivable indifference, and should Finch ever forget, this should serve to remind him, the violence of the man he's hired.

The ex-agent is transcribing the scene aloud and Finch hears but doesn't hear the words.

 _Type of shotgun used._

 _Head shot._

 _Blood spray pattern._

 _Not self-inflicted._

 _Possible suspects._

It's cold and separated and professional and exactly what Finch expects and precisely what he knows he's hired, so perhaps this is why it is what he does not expect that most disarranges.

Finch's limbs are frozen in a horror he will never comprehend, his insides twisted and churning in and on themselves until his breathes drag and heave while the horrendous scene presses into him with shocking dominance.

He doesn't much recall until later, how when he falls forward to grip the nearest surface and empties the contents of his stomach, Reese stands silently. How he doesn't remember the movement but the ex-agent's considerable bulk is obstructing his view of the carnage, how it could be simply a coincidence but how he somehow knows it's not. How Reese does not loom, yet when Finch has nothing left in him to divulge and Finch's knees are on the floor and attempts to regain footing falter, Reese's hand is beneath his elbow, firm but startlingly gentle and devoid of peremptoriness or irate force at Finch's ineptitude. And when Finch casts a frantic look down to where he has so thoroughly and ghastly contaminated the scene, Reese only grips his other arm, stilling his precarious movement. "I've got it," he says, not unkindly, not bitter in the wake of Finch's gross encumbrance, and he locates the carboy of liquid and cloth from the unfamiliar territory with promptitude and inimitable economy, because, of course, John Reese knows how to make all matter of things, the terrible and the unspeakable, and that which seek to never exist at all, disappear.

The hallway occupies a small group of oblivious residents awaiting the elevator at one end and Reese propels Finch to the stairwell at the other.

The stairs are difficult, exponentially so, but Finch is resolved and Reese neither offers nor obtrudes his assistance, yet it's there, where the larger man maintains both taciturn and keen observation from one step behind and one step beside Finch's perilous decent. And Finch never would have anticipated this. Never would he have anticipated this man's unremitting patience as he conforms, unhurried, unirked, to Finch's slow and uneven pace at the expense of his own. It's simple, this kindness, this chivalry, and yet of course it isn't, Finch knows - all too well, Finch knows its absence.

The library smells of musty pages and old print and lingering pastry from the morning, with books piled haphazardly in corners and on dust-lined shelves, and Finch tries to recall why he abandoned its solace, its broken fortitude, for such indelible horrors.

The case is yet unresolved, the board populated with a morass of photos and clippings.

Finch removes his suit jacket, because he needs to discard something, if not what he cannot. It slides from the hook, unnoticed by its owner. Reese catches it. Rearranges it.

Finch sits before he can't stand.

Reese moves into the nearby alcove and back, setting the water bottle in front of his employer, cap removed, leaving Finch momentarily affronted by the latter and once again startled by the act of the former - until he lifts his hands and finds them shaking.

Several moments pass.

Finch watches Reese pick up a file from the desk and begin leafing through its contents, calm, unruffled.

"I suppose this is where you tell me it gets easier with time."

Reese doesn't look up. "No."

It's all he says.

And that's it for Finch's resolve, because this man is far too inscrutable, far too much of an anomaly he cannot decipher in magnitude or direction. The word erupts from him before he realizes it has. _"Why?"_ he blurts, almost frantic, an unknown torment that encompasses far more than the immediate. _Why are you everything I hired but nothing I expect? Why are you nothing like the others?_

Reese pauses at the sudden intensity. And looks up.

And Finch sees then.

He sees, how while the CIA worked to peel away every single piece that would make this man human, how while such a job as that would rob humanity regardless, how while Kara Stanton had sought to rip and burn any shreds remaining, Finch sees, for the first time, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that none of them had succeeded.

Reese closes the file, looks at him, and answers. "Because it doesn't."


End file.
